


A Day in the Life of a Supermarket Employee

by AgreedEquation



Category: Cricket RPF
Genre: M/M, supermarket au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-03 01:03:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5270726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgreedEquation/pseuds/AgreedEquation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says in the title.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Day in the Life of a Supermarket Employee

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! My name is Sofie and I've worked in supermarkets for 9 years (*cries* nine years). I've worked as a cashier, stock clerk, assistant manager in fruit & veg, bakery and dairy departments. Right now I'm assistant manager at the front end. Pretty much everything in this fic is based on personal experience. I have no idea how things work in supermarkets in other countries, so my apologies if something seems a bit strange. Enjoy!

**6.20am – managers’ office**

“Swanny.” Alex gently shook his colleague’s shoulder to wake him up. “Swanny, wake up. Truck’s here.”

Graeme groaned loudly and blindly swatted at Alex’s hand. He’d been working at the ECB supermarket for six years now and he still hadn’t gotten used to the early mornings. Why hadn’t he gone for the front-end manager position? They didn’t have to start working until 7.30am, whereas he usually started at 6am. How he would cherish that hour and a half of extra sleep. “Did you bring coffee?”

“You’ve had three cups already,” Alex replied, looking at the three plastic cups on the desk. “How did you manage to fall asleep?”

“Well, I was checking our promotions for today and…” Graeme pointed at the computer screen in front of him. “It’s the carrots, _again_. Who decides these things? People must be seriously sick of us shoving cheap carrots down their throats. So I decided a short nap would make me feel better.”

“Did it?”

“No because I bet there are tons of carrots on that truck and I just _hate_ carrots.” Graeme sighed and shook his head. _Bloody carrots_. “You know what? You unload the truck and those damned carrots. I’ll go do the quality check. See if everything that’s already stalled is still saleable.”

Alex sighed deeply. He didn’t like it when Greame did his round to check the freshness of the products that were already in the store. He always had to tidy up afterwards and Greame had a tendency to make a huge mess of things. Instead of taking an empty box and putting the fruit and vegetables that were no longer suitable to be sold in it, he just threw them on the floor. Afterwards he’d tell Alex to clean up because he had more important things to do. _Bloody managers_.

 

**6.50am – fruit and vegetable section**

Alex rubbed the back of his head. He had _bad_ news, really, really bad news. He walked past the dairy section and could already see Graeme, crouched next to the tomatoes. Graeme picked up each tomato and threw aside the ones he deemed no longer fresh enough to be sold.

“Swanny,” Alex called to catch the other man’s attention. “We’ve got a problem.”

Graeme turned towards Alex, a tomato resting in the palm of his hand. “Please tell me it’s not a carrot related problem.” His fingers curled around the tomato, pressure slowly building up.

“Only two boxes of carrots came in,” Alex said, his eyes focused on the mess surrounding them. Leeks, celery, carrots, tomatoes and other vegetables were scattered all over the floor. It was already a huge mess and Graeme hadn’t even started on the fruit yet. “So we only have twenty four packages. I double checked all the pallets.”

“Fucking carrots.” The tomato in Graeme’s hand burst, its juices leaking down his hand. “We’ll have to make do. People will complain. But we both finish at twelve, so we won’t have to suffer too much. If we’re lucky we won’t run out of carrots before that.” He dropped the tomato and wiped his hand on his apron. “Clean up this mess while I go check the delivery note to make sure they’ve only charged us for two boxes of carrots. And check the fruit as well because I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

Alex sighed once more. “Sure, Swanny.”

 

**7am - bakery**

“Adil!” Graeme shouted loudly. “Your oven is making hellish noises, make it stop!” He stood in the doorway of the bakery, glaring at the huge oven as if it was his worst enemy (after carrots, of course, because they were his absolute worst enemy. But loud noises in the early morning were definitely the second worst).

Adil hurried towards the bakery, pushing a cart with frozen baguettes in front of him. He pushed the cart into the corner of his bakery and then walked over to the oven. “What are you doing here?” he asked, looking at Graeme who had now entered the room.

“The heating in the manager’s office is still not working. This is the only place where it’s warm,” Graeme said and put his paperwork and tablet on the counter. “You won’t even notice I’m here.” He started tapping on the tablet, bringing up the delivery note of today’s fruit and vegetables.

“You can’t do this,” Adil replied while opening the large door of the oven. A wave of warm air warmed up the room, making Graeme smile. Adil rolled the cart that was in it out, a smell of cinnamon filling the air. “It’s not hygienic. You’re not even wearing a hairnet.”

“Be a dear and pass me one of those cinnamon rolls, they smell delicious.”

When a hot cinnamon roll hit Graeme on the back of the head, he got the message and left.

 

**7.58am – front desk**

“Okay, Joe, it’s time to open up shop. You go open the doors,” Alastair ordered and tossed the keys to the younger man. It was only Joe’s second week at the ECB supermarket, but he was doing well.

“Okay, boss.” Joe caught the keys in mid air and hurried towards the entrance. He crouched down in front of the sliding door and unlocked it. People outside were already waiting for the supermarket to open. Joe always wondered why people did that. No matter what day of the week, there would always be half a dozen people already waiting for the doors to open, most of them shooting him impatient looks through the glass door. “Good morning,” he greeted with a bright smile and then he hurried back inside.

“Morning, Joe.” Eoin was standing at the front desk, checking the planning for the day. He gave Joe a quick wave and walked towards his till as he saw the first customers already entering the store. Most of the early birds only came to buy a newspaper or a loaf of bread so they’d be turning up at the checkout soon enough.

“Have you checked all the tills to see if there’s got enough change?” Alastair asked, going over the morning checklist. Usually he’d be further ahead, but Joe was still a bit slow because he hadn’t built up a routine yet.

Joe shook his head. “No, not yet. Haven’t had the time.” He liked this job, but there was so much more to it than he had thought when he had accepted it. Most of the time he still needed Alastair to tell him what to do and how to do it, but he was making progress every day.

“No worries, take your time. Make sure to check with Eoin first.”

 

**11.45pm – magazines aisle**

“Oh my God, check the tits on that one.” Graeme whispered, pointing at the cover of one of the porn magazines. He took it off the shelf and showed it to Jimmy. “I don’t understand how you can stick to just dicks when there are women like that walking around on this planet.”

Jimmy looked at the magazine over Graeme’s shoulder. “Those have got to be fake,” he said, scrunching his nose at the picture. He really couldn’t see the appeal in large, fake breasts. “Ten ways to make her come. Check page twelve, mate, you might learn something.”

“Excuse me, sir?” a voice came from behind them.

Jimmy and Graeme turned around, Graeme still holding the magazine. A man was standing close to them, a little girl by his side.

“My daughter really needs to pee. Can you tell me where the restroom is?” The man glanced down at the magazine in Graeme’s hand and then back up at his face.

Jimmy had to turn around again because he just couldn’t keep his face straight. Oh how he wished he had a camera to record this.

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” Graeme replied, his face reddening. “It’s this way.” He shoved the magazine into his friend’s hands and walked away, the man and his daughter following him. Once they were out of eyesight, he could hear Jimmy burst out into laughter.

 

**1pm – Coffee and tea aisle**

It was a slow day for those filling the shelfs. They had finished the last pallet an hour ago so all that was left for them to do was check the stock shelves as they waited for the next delivery. Steve didn’t really mind these slower moments. It gave him some time to talk to James while they were working.

“I can’t wait to go on a holiday,” Steve said, reaching out for a packet of coffee. He was tall enough that he didn’t need a ladder to reach the top shelf where they kept most of their stock. “Me and Stu are going to Greece.”

James was working at the other side of the aisle, neatly stacking packages of Lipton tea on top of each other. “Really? That sounds nice. Planning anything special? Or are you just going to lie around on a beach?”

Steve took a few steps closer to James. “Well, actually,” he started in a lowered voice. “I’ve got _big_ plans.”

James looked up at Steve, curious now. “What kind of plans?”

“I’m going to propose to him,” Steve whispered, his eyes twinkling with pride and joy. He and Stuart had been together for almost three years and he felt they were ready for the next step. “I bought the ring last week.”

“Oh my God, really?”

Steve looked around to see if any of the managers were around. When he didn’t spot any of them, he fished his phone out of his pocket. “Look.” He showed James a picture of the ring he’d bought. It was a simple, sleek ring with a narrow diamond cut edge. “I really hope he’ll like it. Well, actually I hope he’ll say ‘yes’, he can hate the ring, as long as he says ‘yes’.”

“Don’t worry, Finny, he will.” James gave his friend a reassuring pat on the back. “He loves you to the moon and back. And he’ll love the ring too.”

Steve smiled brightly as he looked at the picture. In exactly nine days time, he was going to pop the question and he was nervous as hell. Stuart meant the world to him and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with him. He hoped that the feeling was mutual and that he wouldn’t be rejected. “You better be right,” he said. “I probably don’t have to say this, but keep this to yourself, yeah?”

“No worries, your secret is safe with me.”

“What secret?” Moeen asked, appearing next to Steve. He looked at the phone and raised an eyebrow. “You know you can’t use your phone while you’re working, Steve.”

Steve quickly put the phone back into his pocket. Where had Moeen come from all of the sudden? He could swear that Mo was secretly a ninja because he was a pro at sneaking up on people. “Sorry, I was just checking the time,” Steve lied, hoping his manager would fall for it.

“You’re wearing a watch.” Moeen pointed at the watch around Steve’s wrist. “Just leave the phone in your locker, okay?” he patted Steve’s back and walked off again.

“Did you hear or see him coming?” Steve asked James, still baffled at Moeen’s sudden appearance.

James shook his head in response. “Nope.”

 

**2pm – check out three**

“Mr. Cook for checkout three, please.”

“That’s Mark, again.” Alastair sighed. Mark was a fantastic guy and he was great with their customers, but he was terrible with the cash register. He’d been with them for half a year now and he still managed to find ways to fuck things up. “Joe, you go check on him, I’m sure it’s something small.”

Joe nodded and promptly made his way to Mark. He stood behind him and peered at the screen; everything seemed to be okay. “Something wrong?” he asked, resting his hand on Mark’s shoulder.

“These fucking Oreos won’t scan.” Mark frantically moved the package in front of the scanner, but nothing happened. “See?”

“Language.” Joe tapped Mark on the shoulder. He and Mark were about the same age, but he still thought it was important that he showed his authority. He was assistant manager after all. “Have you tried entering the EAN-code?” he asked and picked up the package. He turned it around and peered at the barcode. “Zero, zero, four, four, zero, zero, zero, zero, three, seven, four, two, zero. Got that?”

“Hmm.” Mark pressed enter and a line was added to the bill. “Perfect, thanks, Joe.”

Joe didn’t want to say anything in front of the customers, but Mark really ought to know better. They had told him about this trick many times before. “No problem, Mark.” He handed the Oreos back to Mark and left. He didn’t want to report this because he liked Mark and he didn’t want him to get fired, but it was starting to get annoying. He needed his cashiers to support him, not to create extra work. Maybe he could suggest a refreshment course.

 

**2.30pm – pet food aisle**

James climbed the ladder, but even then he was too short to reach the tin of cat food that was stacked all the way against the back of the shelf. He stretched his arm as much as he could and just about reached the edge of one of the tins. He sighed and pulled back his arm. “Finny? Could you give me a hand here? I can’t reach those tins.”

Steve laughed. “Sure thing, my little friend,” he replied and climbed the first two steps of the ladder. He comfortably reached out to the cat food and handed a couple of cans to his colleague. “There you go.”

“I’m not _that_ short, you know,” James said as he took the tins from Steve. “You’re just freakishly tall.”

“Whatever you say, _Titch_.” Steve grinned, patting James on the back as he walked away.

 

**2.45pm – canned food aisle**

“Excuse me, sir?” A young woman holding a shopping list walked over to James. “Can you tell me where I can find tinned beans?”

“Of course I can, miss, follow me.” James made his way to the aisle with canned foods, the woman following close behind. “What kind of beans are you looking for?” he asked after he stopped in front of the shelf. They had kidney beans, white beans, black beans and God knew what else.

The woman looked at the shopping list, biting her lip. “I’m not sure. I’m a home health aide. My client just gave me this list,” she told James, showing him the piece of paper. She sighed and looked at all the cans in front of her. “What do you think he wants?”

James stared at the woman, not sure what to say. How should he know what _her_ client wanted? “I don’t know, miss. I’m afraid I can’t help you with that.”

“But you work here, you should know!”

“I’m sorry, I don’t.” James bit his lower lip as he looked at the woman and prayed she would let him go. What else could he say? He was a supermarket employee, for God’s sake, not a clairvoyant.

“Fine, I’ll have to sort it out myself then.” The woman sighed and shook her head.

As James turned around and made his way back to where he had been working, he could her mutter “Bloody supermarket employees. Dimwitted as a donkey’s arse, the lot of them.”

 

**3pm – checkout five**

“Good day, madam,” Jimmy greeted, barely glancing at the lady in front of him. “Do you have a loyalty card?” he asked, already reaching out for the first product on the belt.

“No. Don’t want one, thanks.” The woman smiled at Jimmy, but didn’t get any smile in reply. Jimmy wasn’t your everyday checkout operator. He didn’t smile or wasn’t particularly friendly, but he got the job done in an efficient manner. If you wanted things to move on as quickly as possible, Jimmy’s checkout was the one you wanted. If you wanted small talk, you were better off with Mark.

After scanning a couple of products, Jimmy picked up a small plastic bag with oranges in it. At the ECB supermarket, it was expected that customers weighed their fruit and vegetables themselves. They had to put the sticker on the bag and the sticker would be scanned at the checkout. It was an outdated system, but they stuck to it nonetheless. “Excuse me, but these aren’t apples.” He held the bag up, so the woman could see it. The sticker on it said ‘Granny Smith’, but the contents of the bag were clearly oranges.

“Oh really?” the woman raised an eyebrow in disbelief. She chuckled and shook her head. “Then tell me, what are they according to you?” She put her hands on her hips and waited for Jimmy’s answer.

“Oranges.” Jimmy replied, quite taken aback that anyone would mistake oranges for apples. “You have to weigh them again. Scales are over there,” he went on, pointing at the scales against the wall a couple of yards away from them. The sad thing was that people often thought that _they_ were the stupid ones. Because, surely, a checkout operator _had_ to be dumb. Why else would they do the job? People hardly knew just how much it took to operate the cash register. If they did, they would, maybe, show some respect.

“Those aren’t oranges,” the woman replied, rolling her eyes. She turned around to the man standing in line behind her. “Seriously. I think I can see the difference.”

Jimmy sighed and closed his eyes for a few seconds. He had to stay calm. If he called a customer an idiot again, he would probably get fired. “No, madam, I assure you, those are oranges. I’ll go weigh them myself.” He got up and quickly walked over to the scales before the customer could say another word. He really wasn’t getting paid enough for dealing with these kinds of things on a daily basis.

“Sir, I would like to speak to your manager, because I believe you are trying to sell me these apples at a wrong price. Oranges are more expensive than apples,” the woman said when Jimmy returned to his spot behind the till. “Now.”

“Really?” Jimmy glanced at the customer that was next in line. Why couldn’t he just help him out and say that the items inside the plastic bag really were oranges? He could tell the man was thinking it, he just didn’t want to get involved.

“Yes, really, and I will have a word with him about your attitude as well.”

“Okay, if you want to…” Jimmy reached out for the microphone. “Mr. Cook for checkout five, please. Mr. Cook, checkout five.” He sat back in his chair, arms crossed in front of his chest as he waited for Alastair.

Alastair was working on next month’s timetables for his cashiers when he heard his name on the intercom. He recognized the voice and prayed to God that Jimmy didn’t get into another argument with one of the customers. The last thing he wanted to do was fire his boyfriend; that would not go down well. He stood up from his desk and walked to the other side of the supermarket.

“Jimmy?”

“Ah, Ali, you’re here.” Jimmy smiled at Alastair. “The lady over here wants to talk to you.” A queue was beginning to form at Jimmy’s till. He already spotted a couple of impatient customers looking down at their watch and sighing as if it would speed things up. His day was going just _perfect_.

“What seems to be the problem, madam?” Alastair asked, turning towards the woman. She did not look happy at all, he thought.

“This man is trying to sell me these apples at the price of oranges!” the woman explained, pointing at the items in question. “It’s outrageous.”

Alastair looked at the oranges and bit his lip. Surely, this couldn’t be happening. “I will check the price for you, madam” he said, sending her a gentle smile. Was it just him or were people really getting dumber by the day? “Jimmy, would you hand me this week’s brochure, please?” If he didn’t hand this in a diplomatic way, this customer was going to be the cause of a major headache.

“Yes, boss.” Jimmy took the brochure from one of the small drawers next to him. “There you go.”

Alastair leafed through the brochure until he had reached the page with fruits on it. “There we are,” he said, showing the page to the woman. “They’re one pound and thirty pence per kilo,” he told her, pointing at the picture of the oranges. He hoped she would see she that had made a mistake and would just leave it with that.

“Oh, I see, I guess you’re right.” The woman gave Alastair a faint smile. “I must have been mistaken.”

“No problem, madam, we’re always here to help.” With that Alastair turned around and walked away.

 

**4.45pm – front desk**

“Good afternoon, Ali.” Stuart sent his boss a smile and slung an arm around his shoulder. “How are things?”

“I’m going home in fifteen minutes, so everything is great,” Alastair replied. He reached out for a piece of paper lying next to his computer. “I’ve made a list of things that still need to be done.” He gave the note to Stuart. “You need to order shopping bags, the big ones and the medium ones, no small ones. A new student will be starting tomorrow so make sure we have a uniform and a badge for him. I’ve already drawn up the contract, so no need to worry about that. You have to call the accountant because a customer claims that when he came shopping last week, the amount he had to pay appeared twice on his bank extract. Details are over here.” Alastair pointed at a couple of papers neatly held together with a paperclip. “A customer called and said there was a worm inside a bottle of wine she bought a week ago, she may or may not return it today. If she shows up, you’ll have to fill in a quality complaint form. I’ve put one underneath the keyboard of the computer so you won’t have to look for it. Ian’s sick, so you’ll be a man down this evening, but he should be back tomorrow. If he calls and tells you can’t make it tomorrow, please call me. If he is still sick, I’ll come in earlier.”

Stuart took the list from Alastair and glanced at it. “That’s all?” he asked, sarcasm dripping from his voice. He put the list in his pocket and looked at the schedule. It would be just him, Jos and Mark until closing time. They were already understaffed as it was, so they were going to feel Ian’s absence. “I’ll do my best, but if things get busy, I’m not sure I can do all of this.”

Alastair nodded in response. “I know, just do what you can.” He knew he often put a too heavy load on his assistants, but they were so understaffed that he didn’t have much of a choice.

 

**5pm – men’s dressing room**

“I thought this day was never going to end.” Jimmy took off his shirt and threw it into the hamper by the door. “That stupid woman with her stupid oranges, fuck me. And I swear to God, if I hear anyone say ‘That’s free!’ when something doesn’t scan, I will kill them! It’s not funny. It never was, not even the first time I heard it. People are such idiots.”

“You know you really shouldn’t talk about our customers like that,” Alastair said while unbuttoning his shirt. “You really don’t want to give the big boss another reason to fire you.”

“Pfft, he won’t fire me.”

“And why not? He doesn’t really like you in case you hadn’t noticed.” The owner of the supermarket had never really liked Jimmy and was always looking for a way to get rid of him.

“Because you’re his second in command and you wouldn’t let him fire me.” Jimmy grinned widely and took a step closer to Alastair. Alastair’s shirt was hanging loosely from his shoulders, his chest exposed. “Would you?” he asked, resting the palm of his hand against the other man’s collarbone. He slowly ran his hand over Alastair’s chest and stomach, eventually resting it on his hip.

Alastair bit his lip and leaned in closer to Jimmy. Jimmy had no idea, but he had in fact saved his job two times already. His somewhat harsh attitude hadn’t gone unnoticed by the owner and Alastair had to defend Jimmy tooth and nail in order to keep him on. “Give me a reason to.”

“Sure, _boss_.” Jimmy rested his hand on the back of Alastair’s neck and pulled him closer. He tilted his head to the left and kissed Alastair on the lips. It was a gentle, innocent kiss, until Jimmy ran his tongue over Alastair’s lower lip, demanding entrance to his mouth.

They broke apart when the door of the dressing room swung open and Joe walked in.

“Oh, sorry. I-” Joe turned around and reached for the doorknob, ready to leave again.

“It’s okay.” Alastair shrugged off his white and blue ECB shirt and put on one of his own. “Just don’t blab about this. Most people know, but the boss doesn’t and I don’t think he’d appreciate it.” He had only known Joe for two weeks, but he could tell he was someone they could trust.

Joe nodded in reply. “Sure, no problem. But aren’t Steve and Stuart a couple too? Why wouldn’t you be allowed to be together?” he asked.

“Because I’m Jimmy’s manager. People might think I’d do special favours for him if they knew we’re in a relationship,” Alastair explained while he neatly folded his shirt and put it away in his locker. Every once in a while, he _did_ do special favours for him, mostly when he worked on the rosters. But he only did that so their timetables were compatible. It was simply a perk of being a manager.

“That’s a lie. I get sexual favours from him.” Jimmy grinned and wriggled his eyebrows at Joe. “Lots of them.”

Alastair playfully hit Jimmy’s shoulder. “Shut up.” He took his bag out of his locker and poked Jimmy’s side. “Come on, get changed, we’re going home. If you behave I might do you a _favour_.”

 

**6pm – Snacks aisle**

Steve walked over to James and softly elbowed his side. “Don’t look right now, but _the perv_ is here again and he’s totally checking you out,” he whispered while pretending to check out the price of a bag of salt and pepper crisps.

James’ shoulder slumped. “Not again.” He subtlety looked behind him and sure enough, there he was: Shane Warne, better known as _the perv_. Shane liked to hang around the supermarket and watch people (particularly James) while they worked.

“Good morning, James.” Shane walked up to James and Steve. “And Steven.” He reached out for a bag of crisps, his chest almost touching James’ shoulder as he did so. “Wow, you’ve been working out.” He tossed the bag of crisps into his trolley and then rested his hand on James’ upper arm. “Mmm… nice and firm.”

“James,” Steve started, doing his best to ignore Shane. “Moeen was looking for you. He’s in the manager’s office. Something about an order for next week’s promotions.”

“Right.” James nodded and made a mental note to buy Steve a drink later. “I’ll better go then.” Without even giving Shane another look, he hurried off towards the back of the store.

 

**6.30pm – checkout 1/front desk**

Stuart felt miserable. He had to man the front desk and his checkout at the same time due to a lack of employees. He glanced to his left and sighed when he saw the long queue. It was just him, Jos and Mark working the registers until closing time and it just wasn’t enough.

“Can someone help me, please?” A voice from behind the counter asked. “Check this lottery ticket.”

“I’ll be there in a second, sir,” Stuart replied while scanning the last item of the customer in front of him. This was _ridiculous_. Why didn’t their boss hire more people? He and some of the others often had to do three things at the same time during rush hour and he was getting tired of it. He looked at the customer in front of him, trying his best to give her a smile. “Forty-eight pounds and five pence, please,” he said. He accepted the money when the customer offered it to him and then stood up to help the man with the lottery ticket.

While Stuart fed the lottery ticket to the machine, he could hear some of the people in the queue complaining about how long they had to wait and that there should be someone extra to man the front desk. He knew they were right, but he still felt offended. He was doing his best to help everyone as quickly as he could, why wasn’t that enough for them? Why couldn’t they just wait for a couple of minutes? The lottery machine produced a sound that meant the customer hadn’t won anything. “Sorry, sir, no luck.” Without even looking at the man, he sat down behind his till again.

“You really are understaffed, aren’t you?” An elderly woman said, giving Stuart a pitiful smile. “Don’t worry about it, honey, people will just have to wait. It won’t kill them to be patient. You take the time you need.”

This time Stuart managed a genuine smile. “Thank you,” he replied, happy that not all customers had the patience of a five-year-old child.

About fifteen minutes later, the queue had disappeared and he even managed to close his checkout. Mark and Jos had everything under control for now, so he could start working on Alastair’s list again.

“You look like you could use a breather.” Steve walked up to Stuart who was hunched over some paperwork he was filling out. “Got time for a quick bite?” He stood behind his boyfriend and rested his hands on Stuart’s shoulders, giving them a little squeeze.

Stuart sighed and shook his head. “I can’t leave,” he said, putting his hand on top of Steve’s. “Mark still needs supervision and I can’t leave Jos to deal with that and everything else. He’ll drown if it gets busy again.”

“I’ll get you a sandwich and some tea. Not taking your breaks is one thing, but you have to eat,” Steve told Stuart. He looked around to check that no one was looking at them and then he pressed his lips against Stuart’s temple. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Thanks.” Stuart suddenly felt much better. His rotten mood had been replaced by a warm, fuzzy feeling in his chest. He really had the best boyfriend in the world.

 

**8pm – closing time**

“Go and tell Ben to ask that customer over there to come to the checkout. It’s closing time and he’s the only one left,” Stuart told Jos, pointing at the customer who was checking out different kinds of toilet paper.

“Why ask Ben? I can tell him,” Jos answered, frowning. He was still rather new at the ECB supermarket, but he wasn’t an imbecile; he could ask someone to leave.

“Because you’re too nice,” Stuart explained, looking up from the money he was counting. “Ben’s scary look will make him come over straight away. I want to go home.”

“Point taken.” Jos nodded and hurried towards the butchery. “Ben? You still in there?” he asked, opening the door to the cooled area. “There’s still one customer inside. Can you ask him to leave?”

Ben had just finished cleaning up the butchery. He _loved_ scaring customers, but he was only allowed to do so at closing time (and only Stuart would ask him. Alastair would bust his balls if he knew they did this). “Sure, Jossy. Let me just put my dirty apron back on. There’s blood on it.” He grinned widely and there was a playful twinkle in his eyes. “Where is he?” he asked after putting on the apron.

“Toilet paper aisle.”

“Just leave him to me.” Ben rubbed the palms of his hands together, picked up a cleaver and exited his butchery. He crossed the store, whistling the Kill Bill tune as he made his way towards the customer.

When Ben arrived by his side, the customer was _still_ looking at the toilet paper. How long could it possibly take someone to decide what type of toilet paper to wipe their arse with?

“Sir, hello,” Ben greeted, waving the cleaver at the man. “We’re closing.”

“I only need a few more things. I won’t take long,” the customer replied, looking at Ben. His eyes focused on the bloody apron for a few moments and then the cleaver.

“We’re closing _now_ ,” Ben said, staring at the customer with the meanest look he could come up with. “I’ll show you the way to the checkout and my colleague will help you on your way.” He took the customer’s trolley and started making his way to Jos’ checkout.

 

**8.20pm – parking lot**

Stuart and Steve stood beside their car as the others quickly got into theirs and drove off.

“You okay?” Steve asked, pulling Stuart into an embrace. “You seemed really stressed earlier.” He took a step back, leaning against the car. He took Stuart’s hand in his and gave it a small squeeze.

Stuart sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “The usual. Too much work and not enough people to get it done.” They had been understaffed for years, but things only seemed to be getting worse lately. Their boss had been cutting hours from some of the cashiers which meant he and Alastair had to work at the till more, while they still had heaps of other work that had to be done. Joe was a blessing, though, but it would take some time for him to learn everything. “I’m quite lucky that this sweetheart of a man gave me some food and something to drink.”

“Quite a handsome man that was too, I heard.” Steve grinned and wriggled his eyebrows.

“Hmm.” Stuart leaned in, nuzzling his nose against Steve’s. “He was.” Their lips met for a long, languid kiss. “Let’s go home,” he said when they broke apart. “I think we deserved a nice, hot bath, don’t you?”

Steve nodded and took the keys to their car out of his bag. “Absolutely.”

**Author's Note:**

> Do me a favour and be nice to the employees at supermarkets when you go shopping (unless they're being assholes, which is perfectly possible). A 'thank you' or a kind smile often brightens our days and is much appreciated. Also, don't ever think we're stupid (again, there are some exceptions), because we do so much more than you get to see.


End file.
